Polls shift: Obi appeals for continuation of PVC collection

The Vice Presidential Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Peter Obi, has appealed to the Independent National Electoral Commission to use the opportunity offered by the one-week postponement of the Presidential and National Assembly elections that ought to have taken place on Saturday to extend the collection of Permanent Voter Cards by registered voters who have not been able to do so. Obi made the appeal while speaking with newsmen in his Onitsha, Anambra State residence hours after INEC announced the postponement of the elections on Saturday, citing logistics challenges. “I wish to take this opportunity to appeal to INEC to explore the extra one week window and allow voters to continue collecting their PVCs,” Obi said. Though he expressed dissatisfaction over the postponement of the elections, Obi aligned himself with the position of the PDP Presidential Candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, and the PDP National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus, both of whom earlier appealed to Nigerians to remain calm and peaceful. Obi admitted that the waste associated with the postponement was staggering “in view of the fact that Nigerians travelled to their states from different parts of the country and abroad to fulfill their civic duties, only to get the news of the postponement on the election day.” He, however, encouraged Nigerians to remain committed by possibly staying behind as a further demonstration of patriotism because, according to him: “No sacrifice to get Nigeria working again is a waste.” On the argument that the PDP lacked the moral justification to condemn the postponement, having done the same in 2011 and 2015, Obi argued that the fact that elections were postponed in the past should be the reason why it should not happen again on the supposition that lessons of the past should be used to improve the future.